Has my laptop had its time to shine??

@aly975  You are right the graphics hardware is part of the design of the motherboard and can not be changed without changing the whole motherboard which is most cases will cost more then the laptop is worth. What I mean is to upgrade the graphics drivers. Display drivers is software that lets the graphics communicate with the rest of the system and are updated from time to time. The default resolution is the resolution that will work the best with the monitor attached to the computer. Any resolution below or above this value won't produce  as sharp an image as the default resolution. Setting the resolution to a setting other then the default monitor (screen) will produce a less clear image.

Windows 8 (8.1) was a flop and was not supported as well as it should have been. It could be because of the poor support by Microsoft, third party vendors may have been slack in supporting their hardware. Microsoft answer to the dismissal sales for Windows 8 was to allow Windows 8 owners to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. As Microsoft and third party vendors there seems to be plenty of support for Windows 10.

I can not answer why you are having these issues without knowing the whole history of your ownership of these games and what is the status of your computer is. Posting your computer's dxdiag what probably help. That lists your hardware and all the drivers so we can tell if you have out dated hardware and improper drivers. Just a glance I can see your hardware is out of date. This could mean software may be so far out of date it doesn't work properly anymore. Gamers frequently have to update display drivers so the programs will run properly. I know why this is but that is a discussion for another time and another forum. All you have to know is updating drivers is part of bieng a gamer. Your laptop may be8 years old (maybe). that is a long time for a gaming laptop. I could go into the design of HP laptops but again this isn't the time or the place. What I will say is there have been many laptops in my family and most are gone except the Dell laptops. I'm not sure if the hardware is correct as a dxdiag would list everything your computer has and the drivers for the hardware. there is many things that need to be looked at and confirmed. As you listed Forceware 399.07 - according to Nvidia that is the latest driver but is that the drive installed in your system. How much free space is on the system drive is another item that needs to be checked as well as others that are too numerous to check.